Cable risers: influence of shape, material, different kinds of wood?

[engadin]

I think we all agree that cable risers can and do make a difference.

There is a capacitance effect. It doesn’t end with the diameter of your cable. Something surrounds it, adding capacitance.
Any floor is worse than air in this respect.

Then there is humm coming from the floor. You can measure it. A chap in a German forum did exactly that. He connected a simple metal baking tray to an oscilloscope, tray hanging on a thread. When lowering the tray closer to the floor, the hum measurably and clearly increased.

Then, there might as well be an aspect of floor resonances coming into the cable. Any movement would induce some current.


There are many different approaches.
All do the main thing: get the cable away from the floor.

But: have you tried different thingies as risers and noticed differences in sound?
Right now, I use a collection of Multiplex and wood blocks, a few stones. What I had at hand.
From an aesthetic standpoint, there is undoubtedly room for improvement

Well, what to choose?

Emile Bok of Taiko recently wrote that he preferred small cardboard boxes in the end, compared to more elaborate things.
A few chaps here have tried exotic hardwoods or tone wood.
Some gent elsewhere claimed walnut wood to be superior to other wood.
Some said to avoid rubber strings under cables.

I could go into a gift shop and buy a few dozen nice looking cardboard boxes.
Or order ebony blocks. Or have walnut blocks made by a woodworker.
Wood blocks with a flat top or say a triangular cross section for minimum contact area?

What did you try? What did you like, what not?
Please share!

 

[italia]

Good potential thread discussion. I would interject that in addition to cable on floor concerns, the capacitive coupling of two cables in contact with each other potentially causing crosstalk is often overlooked. Further, inductive coupling of a cable whose electromagnetic field affects another nearby cable's electromagnetic field is also often overlooked.

Thus, I sometimes cringe when I see audio setups where people spend a lot of money on exotic cable lifters and then lay 2 cables across one lifter touching each other at many points.

My unpopular opinion: Not taking anything away from physical resonance/vibration, but my feeling is that the field matters much more than other things when it comes to wire placement and isolation efforts

 

[Kodak805]

I think we all agree that cable risers can and do make a difference.

There is a capacitance effect. It doesn’t end with the diameter of your cable. Something surrounds it, adding capacitance.
Any floor is worse than air in this respect.

Then there is humm coming from the floor. You can measure it. A chap in a German forum did exactly that. He connected a simple metal baking tray to an oscilloscope, tray hanging on a thread. When lowering the tray closer to the floor, the hum measurably and clearly increased.

Then, there might as well be an aspect of floor resonances coming into the cable. Any movement would induce some current.


There are many different approaches.
All do the main thing: get the cable away from the floor.

But: have you tried different thingies as risers and noticed differences in sound?
Right now, I use a collection of Multiplex and wood blocks, a few stones. What I had at hand.
From an aesthetic standpoint, there is undoubtedly room for improvement

Well, what to choose?

Emile Bok of Taiko recently wrote that he preferred small cardboard boxes in the end, compared to more elaborate things.
A few chaps here have tried exotic hardwoods or tone wood.
Some gent elsewhere claimed walnut wood to be superior to other wood.
Some said to avoid rubber strings under cables.

I could go into a gift shop and buy a few dozen nice looking cardboard boxes.
Or order ebony blocks. Or have walnut blocks made by a woodworker.
Wood blocks with a flat top or say a triangular cross section for minimum contact area?

What did you try? What did you like, what not?
Please share!

I use bath towel tip holders. They come in different heights and finishes. They make it easy to clean under the cables.. The base is weighted and the mass of the cables keep them upright. You thread the positive and negative runs of the speaker cable through opposite sides of the rings and they remain so without falling out or off. This is a simple, inexpensive and very elegant solution.

 

[engadin]

A simple, cost effective and elegant solution.
But did you compare with other materials?

 

[Kodak805]

These met my needs and so I stopped there. The Tara Labs 0.3 Loudspeaker Cables are very heavy and stiff. The way they rest on opposite sides of the towel rings guarantees stability. The metal composition of the towel rings never gave me a reason to question them sonically vs. the cables laying directly on the porcelain tile floor.

 

[Tangram]

I would be interested to hear from anyone who can hear differences between cable risers made from different woods.

 

[Paul1960]

Not to be contrary, but I've never heard cable risers make a difference. I use them because you are supposed to and it makes some sense that they might make a difference but I have never heard them make a difference. Cable, tubes, amps, etc.. all make an audible difference in my system but not cable risers.

 

[thedudeabides]

Given the inherent issues with auditory memory, how would you propose to evaluate the sonic differences between risers? BTW, when I had a stereo, I used CD cases.

 

[thomasx]

If someone has a wooden ceiling, then its posible to hang the cables up like i did. So i can ordenate them, especially the Sternklang Ephemera cable are sensitive contra hum. The impact in sound is not trivial. With all the cables on the carpet
the sound was muffled. The other advantage is, that i can a lot easier clean the carpet.

 

[wil]

If someone has a wooden ceiling, then its posible to hang the cables up like i did. So i can ordenate them, especially the Sternklang Ephemera cable are sensitive contra hum. The impact in sound is not trivial. With all the cables on the carpet
the sound was muffled. The other advantage is, that i can a lot easier clean the carpet.

I’ve considered this implementation. I might use fishing line or picture framing wire, which would disappear more so.

 

[thomasx]

Hi wil,
in the foto its more visible than from my listening seat. But shure transparent fishing line will be more invisible

 

[Hilroy48]

At this time I am using sponge hockey pucks.

 

[surfing_dude]

I think we all agree that cable risers can and do make a difference.

There is a capacitance effect. It doesn’t end with the diameter of your cable. Something surrounds it, adding capacitance.
Any floor is worse than air in this respect.

Then there is humm coming from the floor. You can measure it. A chap in a German forum did exactly that. He connected a simple metal baking tray to an oscilloscope, tray hanging on a thread. When lowering the tray closer to the floor, the hum measurably and clearly increased.

Then, there might as well be an aspect of floor resonances coming into the cable. Any movement would induce some current.


There are many different approaches.
All do the main thing: get the cable away from the floor.

But: have you tried different thingies as risers and noticed differences in sound?
Right now, I use a collection of Multiplex and wood blocks, a few stones. What I had at hand.
From an aesthetic standpoint, there is undoubtedly room for improvement

Well, what to choose?

Emile Bok of Taiko recently wrote that he preferred small cardboard boxes in the end, compared to more elaborate things.
A few chaps here have tried exotic hardwoods or tone wood.
Some gent elsewhere claimed walnut wood to be superior to other wood.
Some said to avoid rubber strings under cables.

I could go into a gift shop and buy a few dozen nice looking cardboard boxes.
Or order ebony blocks. Or have walnut blocks made by a woodworker.
Wood blocks with a flat top or say a triangular cross section for minimum contact area?

What did you try? What did you like, what not?
Please share!

Never tried it, but a good friend of mine confirmed they are very effective

Audionet GAUSS
Graphite audio

 

[XCop5089]

My other half had an annoying habit of treading on my cables when she went to look out of the front window.

Since the Audioquest Fog-Lifters have been in situ, she avoids the area around my system, like a minefield!

Result!

 

[TooCool4]

Personally, I’ve never noticed any difference. The only reason I use cable risers is to make cleaning underneath easier. I just made my own using round wooden discs, glued together to get the right height.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

My other half had an annoying habit of treading on my cables when she went to look out of the front window.

...and it doesn't even help to tell them how much they cost! That just opens a box better kept shut. I considered sprinkling broken chards of glass back there, but worried about our little dog.

 

[hoodjem]

I just switched from maple to purpleheart wood block risers.

The maple blocks were leftover chidren’s building blocks from my kids play stuff when they were young.
The purpleheart was given to me in a big chunk by Mr. Audio Resurgence, when we were in an audio club years ago. I took it to a woodshop and had it cut down into Cardas ratio blocks.

I haven’t noticed any difference in sound. (I switched only because I prefer the darker appearance of the purpleheart.)

 

[ejk]

Rebar chairs. Less than a buck at Home Depot. never took off the labels because I'm lazy.

 

[hoodjem]

Rebar chairs. Less than a buck at Home Depot. never took off the labels because I'm lazy.

Awesome!
I’m all about finding non-audio items to do audio things for 1/10th (or 1/100th) the price.
Thumbs up!

 

[engadin]

I, too, like non audio devices do audio things for a fraction of the price.

Recently I swapped an irregular shaped stone pillar with an old Stillpoints Ultra on top as cable riser for a power cord to a piece of multiplex wood on a book, Stillpoints Ultra on top again. Just for looks, as the Ultra on top of the stone wasn’t level.
Why the Ultra? It was at hand and had the right height and should not hurt, so I thought.
I expected no sonic difference.
I didn’t notice it at once.
Leading edge of notes like drums were blunted. Some kind of boredom in musical expression.
Gave the TADs an hour of high volume workout, had the Taiko Extreme do a reset, that usually clears similar issues.
Not this time. I looked around for possible things which might have gone wrong.
Fooling around with different stuff under the Ultra did the trick.

Groan.
I always thought Gottfried Keller books are boring. Same effect under my power cord to

Don’t laugh. I do know this borders ridiculous.
Groan, another can of worms.

I do hope for a halfways cost effective solution, like hardwood or tonewood bricks.
Some household item to beat all.